Cannot mount 4TB external drive

Newbie1

Hi,
I click on my external drive to mount it but get this message:

In the past i just go to disk and click on the drive and then click on setting and click on file system repair and i can mount.
but today the file system repair is not highlighted so i can't click on it to repair.

any idea what happen?

brent

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/315063/mount-wrong-fs-type-bad-option-bad-superblock

this is one cluster**** of a stackexchange thread. but that identical error you got can be solved---according to all who contributed--by re-formatting, using dmesg, making sure your hardware cables are who they say they are, a fstab edit, an fsck repair...etc etc etc

What's amazing is that people have solved "mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock" so many very different ways...

you have troubleshoot a little and narrow it down. Its one known specific thing alright, in a Holmes-ian sense--but you have to throw out all the other known specific things as well.

hope I didn't cloud that too much. good luck.

Newbie1

i appreciate the link and i tried some of the solutions and it did not help.
is there anyway i can access the filesystem repair program via terminal and tell it to repair for me like i use to do via the disk wheel setting.

By the way for my internal drive the wheel setting does highlight the filesystem repair but my external one is not highlighted so i can't click on it to fix it.

brent

Here's a beginner's tutorial to scan and repair with fsckand df(two terminal programs I think are good for this).
Scan first and share the info you get.
https://phoenixnap.com/kb/fsck-command-linux

edit: my two cents is don't repair in the GUI. gnome-disks is ok but see what terminal gets you first.

Newbie1

brent

i trried your link and got the following results
Can you explain what it means?

MikeK61

I had the same error yesterday as well.
If the filesystem is ntfs by any chance you can try booting in a pre windows system like Hyrens BootCD and run from command line chkdsk /F on the particular drive.

This worked for me.

stocc

The external drive is formatted with NTFS, so fsck can't do anything with it. You'll probably either need to run CHKDSK under a Windows installation, or follow the advice provided earlier by MikeK61

There is a linux command line utility called ntfsfix, which can fix some basic issues, but I don't know whether it's included in Solus. I think it's in the ntfs-3g package. You could try to run this utility.

brent

Newbie1 I don't know what that output means.
sudo umount /dev/sdc --it's unmounted, right?

Also I didn't see the -y argument in that tutorial-maybe I missed it.

If the whole unrecognizable unmountable drive can be seen in
df -hlist that' a good thing. Can it be seen?

after making sure it's unmounted, the tutorial lists a regular scan of the drive as:
sudo fsck /dev/sdc

Newbie1

brent

Here are the screen shots

Hopefully it makes sense because i don't understand it.
The df -h does not show sdc but temp from what i can see.

brent

temp? don't know what that means that's weird.
if lsblk andblkid (both sudo) don't show it (try them both) then what program calls it /dev/sdc i wonder?

brent

stocc completely missed the ntfs and was unaware of its scan limitation 🙁. sorry OP

Newbie1

To everybody,
Luckly i still have two old laptop and netbook that have window XP and window 7 starter on the netbook.
The window XP had a problem with the 4TB HD but the window 7 starter when plug in ask if i want to repair the HD.
i of course say yes and click on the repair, a little later it fix it and i could get into the HD.

I then went to my Solus computer and was able to mount it and get in to the HD also.

The funny thing is i went to disk Solus and click the setting wheel and the repair filesystem still is not highlihted.
In the past it is always highlighted and i would click on it and it repair the bad sector i guess and i can mount.
Curious why even though it's fix, the disk wheel don't work as a option to fix the filesystem.

Regardless, i am in the HD now and want to Thank everybody for their inputs to get me running again particularly Brent for all his suggetions .

brent

Newbie1 I find it delicious irony that WIN7 stepped up and repaired this when no other Windows would. (last 'goodish' Windows was 7).

Newbie1 The funny thing is i went to disk Solus and click the setting wheel and the repair filesystem still is not highlihted.
In the past it is always highlighted and i would click on it and it repair the bad sector i guess and i can mount.
Curious why even though it's fix, the disk wheel don't work as a option to fix the filesystem.

In budgie I use the native gnome-disks to 'repair' the filesystem. Doesn't always work but mostly. I do not know what gear wheel in what program you are referring to? In the file manager?

All the same, congrats!! It's ALWAYS something unexpected and weird like this! Your disk works and can be seen!
Good job following your nose/instinct and testing on all hardware to be sure.

BuzzPCSOS

Newbie1 Only just seen this. Well done.
Now that your drive is up and running again it would be good to make sure that the same thing does not happen again,
Check the health of your drive, there are different ways to do this depending what edition of Solus you are using or you can use HD Sentinel which will return a detailed report.
Ensure the drive is always properly unmounted before switching off your PC or unplugging the drive. This is vital for continued drive health.
If the drive is used only on Linux systems then it could be better to switch from NTFS to EXT4. Alternatively an Oracle VirtualBox (available in the Repo) install of Windows 7 on your computer would provide an easy way to check and repair NTFS discs without needing to hunt out old hardware. Use Windows as a Linux application. Lol

Newbie1

brent
i was talking about this:
This is my internal HD as you can see that is the gear wheel with repair filesystem highlighted for you to click if repair is needed.

Now this is my 4TB HD which is working as mentioned earlier via Window 7 Starter fix, but as you can see the gear wheel does not highlight the repair filesystem as it use to in the past in Linux.
Also if you notice in the internal HD there is a icon next to the gear wheel on the left.
Before i always saw that also on the 4TB HD now it's not there.
if you or anyone else have idea on what happen, I would appreciate it.
But regardless i am a happy camper now lol.
Again much Thanks to everybody for advice and help.

Newbie1

BuzzPCSOS

Thanks, i will definitely take your advice to check the health of the HD.

Newbie1

BuzzPCSOS
Hi,
i installed HD sentinel and it gives me the health of my internal HD.
But when i went to check on the external HD i get the following:
The same thing happens when i use SMART in the disk in Solus.
It give the internal drive because i can click on the SMART but for external drive that function is not highlighted so i can't click on it to get the health of the external drive.

Do you know why this is happening?

brent

Newbie1 ok, that is the gnome-disks program--I use this.
That icon, I believe is the Mount/Unmount drive button. You will get a grayed out context menu like that if its mounted since you aren't supposed to do 'surgery' on mounted partitions.
Think I got that right more or less

Newbie1

brent
I just checked , it's mount/unmount.
But both the internal HD and external HD are mounted so do not know why the external HD does not show it anymore.

Axios

Newbie1 Most time you cant read smart data from external drives.
Its complicated issue why this happens does not mean anything is wrong.
So many things have to happen to read it from USB. Its different than just reading and writing to Drive

Newbie1

Axios
Thanks for input.
The HD is working so everything is cool, was just curios on the general health of the drive.